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Last week, a claim shook the once clean image of mega YouTuber David Dobrik. In a Business Insider story, a woman who wanted to remain anonymous said she was raped by Dom Zeglaitis, a member of the Vlog Squad, in 2018. The woman claimed that she had consumed so much alcohol that she could not consent to having sex with Zeglaitis.
She also accused Dobrik of filming her entering the room where the incident occurred and posting to YouTube a few days later. She said that Dobrik later deleted the vlog at her request. Business Insider spoke to one of the woman’s friends and YouTuber, Trisha Paytas, who found that the youth group that night was underage and stocked with hard liquor. I spoke with Dobrik and Zeglaitis about the allegations, but I had no answer.
Of course, the focus of the charges must be on Zeglaitis. But it is the part of Dobrik that took over the media and online communities last week.
After the story was released, big brands started to cut ties with Dobrik. Companies like DoorDash, HelloFresh and EA Sports have made public statements condemning the charges. SeatGeek said she was “reviewing” her relationship with him. Then, Dobrik made a statement saying he would leave the board of Dispo, a photo-sharing app that he helped create. People celebrated online the rapid domino effect of the financial and commercial consequences that Dobrik was facing.
This even led YouTuber to post a second, so familiar genre of apologies on YouTube the next day. Dobrik looks somber, is facing the camera, is sitting on the floor, and the video is given a vague title: “3/22/21”. (He first addressed the charges against Zeglaitis and him on his podcast channel the day the Business Insider report was published. He then said “he does not advocate any kind of misconduct”.) In his second apology, Dobrik he seemed to be confronting the issues and his part in them more directly. He said he is aware of an “unfair power dynamic” that he created between himself and other Vlog Squad content creators and that he generally “fucked it up” and regretted it.
“Even though I obtained the consent to post that video, I should never have posted it,” he says in the second apology, which has over 8 million views. “I want to apologize to her and her friends for putting them in an environment – which I have enabled – that made them feel that their safety and values were compromised.”
Whether Dobrik’s apology is sincere or not depends on the accuser. But the news cycles and family habits we have created around watching an influencer struggle to atone for questionable or worrying behavior are becoming very tiring.
Influencers, specifically YouTubers, who are called for current and past bad behavior, usually try to avoid addressing you publicly or directly at the beginning. I spoke to several YouTubers in my career when scandals broke out, and they or their advertisers rarely provide answers. The PR strategy seems to be that if they don’t talk about it, the problem can go away. Sometimes it works, especially if the accuser or questioner gets tired enough to demand accountability.
When a YouTuber he does addressing something publicly, usually in the form of an apology video that will generate millions of views for the channel, will almost always occur after brands start closing their deals. This happened with a variety of scandals, from the less serious ones, like Jaclyn Hill’s shit lipstick show, to the very damaging ones, like PewDiePie’s anti-Semitic comments and Aokigahara’s infamous video and all the frustrating actions and omissions by Logan Paul. The consequences of their actions, however, were minimal. All of these YouTubers still have platforms and fandoms, and their careers have been sustained.
For Dobrik, this is not even his first cycle this year with a public denunciation of transgression. Last month, I reported the allegations of sexual assault by another Vlog Squad member named Seth against Dobrik for a 2017 viral “prank” video. In the video, Seth is invited to kiss a woman, but finds out that he is actually kissing one man, YouTuber colleague Jason Nash. Seth told me that Dobrik intentionally tricked him in the name of a “gotcha”, and he only recently started to unravel how violent it was for him. Dobrik and his team did not respond to my multiple requests for comment, nor did Nash.
These claims seemed to have an effect on Dobrik and his empire for only a few weeks. He was more or less able to avoid approaching them and continued to post content, interact with fans and record his podcast as if those realities did not exist.
Now, along with the most recent allegations, there is some level of confrontation and “change” going on in the sector. Of course, Dobrik said something publicly and companies are “taking a stand” against him. But as we’ve been here so many times with YouTubers, it’s hard not to feel demoralized about whether these changes and attitudes are genuine and old. Will these big corporations sign deals with Dobrik again in a few months, when that stain on him goes back to the background? Will these companies just reallocate their money to another YouTuber with a questionable past? Did Dobrik learn from it sincerely or was he trained to say the right things in the name of damage control to his financial results? Will he reevaluate how he manages his own power and influence on his team and the type of content he posts, or will he go back to old habits when people and the media stop paying so much attention?
I am not asking these questions playfully. I really do not know. Only Dobrik and the people within these institutions know what they really feel and what they will do about these issues in the long run. But I am not holding my breath for a transformative result. I am discouraged just waiting to see what will happen in a few months or a few years. I hope to be surprised in good manners, but I am prepared to be disappointed again.
Before you play CaNceL CuLTuRe in my path, I’m not asking – and I don’t think most people are asking – for him and other YouTubers to be “canceled” indefinitely. The discourse on the cancellation of culture is also so exhausting and I don’t want to go into that here. Dobrik losing his money and career, while symbolically satisfying for the people he hurt, does nothing great for society in general. This can further isolate and victimize him, which he can use to gain more sympathy and support. He, and other YouTubers, must face consequences that awaken him to the reality of his actions – whatever they may be.
And when he is really aware of himself and how he has hurt people in their quest for fame, he can choose to do things differently. And set a better precedent for YouTubers and anyone else that multi-billion dollar companies are endorsing every day.
Perhaps then we will see a credible change. But today I am overwhelmed. And I will leave you and this newsletter with a sentence that I start to hate: Only time will tell.
Until next time,
Tanya